Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 4 about?

Concern for the vulnerable governs the first half of the chapter, which forbids turning away the hungry, grieving the needy, or delaying a gift to the poor. Wisdom is then pictured as a mother who tests her sons before she trusts them, raising those who love her to honor while she torments the wavering. The chapter also warns against false shame and half-hearted courage, urging the reader to confess sin honestly and to strive for truth even to death. Compassion and integrity are set forth as the fruit of the fear of the LORD.

Historical backdrop

Ben Sira taught in Jerusalem around 180 BC, in the last calm before the storm. Judea had passed from Ptolemaic to Seleucid hands, Greek ways pressed in from every side, and the second temple still stood in the glory the high priest Simon had restored, the Simon whose splendor the book remembers. Within a generation Antiochus would defile that temple, and the grandson who carried the work to Egypt and turned it into Greek wrote in the aftermath, for the Jews of Alexandria.

The Church Fathers on Sirach 4
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Sirach 4

Sirach Chapter 4
4
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What is Sirach 4 about?

Concern for the vulnerable governs the first half of the chapter, which forbids turning away the hungry, grieving the needy, or delaying a gift to the poor. Wisdom is then pictured as a mother who tests her sons before she trusts them, raising those who love her to honor while she torments the wavering. The chapter also warns against false shame and half-hearted courage, urging the reader to confess sin honestly and to strive for truth even to death. Compassion and integrity are set forth as the fruit of the fear of the LORD.